Lords of Rainbow

  Yellow exuberance.

  Ranhé’s heart surged within her suddenly gold body, and she stood in that same intimate field of brilliant ripe grass, beneath a sky formed out of his hair.

  The man-in-the-sky filled the universe, and his intimate gaze pierced Ranhé, while his face smiled.

  Next to her, Elasirr threw a golden hand up to shield himself from the sudden brilliance, as he stared up into the giant in the sky, saying in a strangely deadened voice, “Dersenne! Why did you leave the world we come from? What made you leave us, O Tilirreh?”

  The yellow one looked down upon the one who had asked the question.

  I did not leave, said Dersenne gently. Rather, you have all receded. The distance between us became a singular void, and now I may not even reach behind me and feel Melixevven, nor can I venture forward and meet Fiadolmle. Our ties have become severed, and our worlds may not come into contact, only overlap.

  There was sorrow in his words, but the living voice soared like a morning lark into the expanse of heaven, and could not help but inspire. For he was the lord of Sacrament.

  “My sweet lord,” whispered Ranhé, “I understand now, why you cannot come back. But I would know why this took place, those hundreds of years ago. What made the Rainbow recede from our world, and take with it most of the truth?”

  I am not the one to answer such, my joy, the gold one replied, maybe to her alone, intimate as mist within her inner ear. But you must first ask a different question.

  Ask: what is the Rainbow?

  And after that, there was only silence upon fields ripe as dandelion gauze.

  Ranhé blinked, and then she, and the two others were taken up, and pulled upon the wind, and then they jumped. . . .

  And landed in the world’s green Forest.

  They lay, thrust into the earth itself, feeling roots extend into richness of soil, tendrils of grass growing from their own flesh, entwining with the vines of others, joining.

  Ranhé sensed—lying in the deep thicket, via the entwined limbs of her transformed being—the breathing of Elasand’s lungs, and the beating of Elasirr’s heart.

  And beyond, she also sensed the rich overwhelming presence of the woman who extended to embrace and encompass them, who was the very forest itself, Fiadolmle, the lady of Birth.

  Overhead, the sky was an unrolled bolt of deep jade velvet, spreading like thick honey to pool in the cracks of the horizon. At its apex was set a verdigris sun, pouring exhilaration upon the forest.

  “Fiadolmle!” whispered Elasand. “What is the Rainbow?”

  The leaves moved in with succulence, and a shimmering voice came to flow through them, like sap running through the stems of the plants.

  Rainbow is union . . . said the green one. And the final joining results in white. But that cannot be again, ever. For Andelas is no more, and without him, we may not join, only coexist.

  “Andelas, the Tilirreh of white!” exclaimed Vaeste. “I know of his mystery, but little of the truth surrounding it. It is said in our world that he left, and took the rest of the Tilirr with him. . . .”

  He left, and we had to follow. And now, he is gone so far that even we cannot extend ourselves to feel his presence. . . .

  “But why?” continued Elasand. “Why did he leave us? What was it, those centuries ago, that made him abandon our world and make it incomplete?”

  And Fiadolmle’s sweet growing vines wrapped softly around Elasand’s cheek in a whispering caress of succulent leaves.

  It is the same reason that you would leave the beloved house of your birth. You have grown and matured, while the house has stayed the same, and did not change with you. What was once sweet pleasure, now oppresses. What had once been clean and new, is now worn and old and filled with decay. What had once held memories of peace, now only reeks of death. What had once filled a vital need, is now a burden. Would you not leave?

  Her gentle whisper ended. And yet, the leaves continued to grow preternaturally. Vines crawled forth, and offshoots were breaking into new full branches all around them, obscuring all sight with their rich abundance, while overhead the green sky shimmered like endless spilled velvet.

  Ranhé had to close her eyes. And then she felt herself jumping into an elsewhere. . . .

  When she opened her eyes, she saw a horizon.

  It was a line bisecting the world in two. A blue world of sea and sky.

  She floated like a swan upon the surface of the still deep water, and next to her were two others. There was a brilliant azure light upon the waters, shining down from an unseen source.

  Ranhé looked up, and saw it was the sky itself, a great mass of electric day-fire, that reflected back upon itself from the cyan waters, in an endless source of rebounding illumination.

  Just ahead of her, something burst forth from the water, in a foaming pale spray of a fountain, and she saw a man, ultramarine like the foam, surface, and take powerful strokes to flow toward them.

  He tread water lightly, and yet his extremities appeared at some point to dwindle into the wetness itself, become translucent with liquidity.

  “Koerdis!” said Elasirr, himself now a merman, swimming alongside her, while the great pale mane of his hair spread around him like seaweed. On her other side, Elasand’s dark hair flowed like rich cerulean currents against the waves.

  Why are you here? said a voice like the deep itself.

  “We ask you to give us the truth,” responded Elasirr. “What can be done to restore the Rainbow? How can Andelas, who left us, be persuaded to return?”

  Around them the ocean swelled. Koerdis glided near them, his sleek perfect body moving in rhythm with the water. His eyes, when Ranhé caught a glimpse of them, were bottomless intense darkness, like the ocean depths. And yet, it was a clean warm velvet richness that was inside them, and he looked within her as he spoke, so that she found it both pleasurable to meet that gaze, and impossible to fathom it.

  Truth is what I give, said the flowing blue one. You ask about Andelas, and yet, the answer is before you, even now.

  “What do you mean?” whispered Ranhé.

  Look above you, said the azure god. And then, look below and around you. Where is the source of light? Take away the sky, and the ocean will be in darkness. Take away the ocean, and the sky will not shine.

  “But what is the original catalyst, the source of this light?” asked Elasirr.

  I am, of course. For, this is my world.

  “And if you were to leave it, O Tilirreh, then what?”

  Then this world would not exist, for it is only an extension of myself. Only this does not apply to the world you call your own. Your world is an extension of all of us, and thus no single one of us can fully destroy it, nor fully restore it. Not even Andelas. For, your world has long since taken on a life of its own. It exists outside our sphere now, and will, unto eternity.

  And speaking thus, Koerdis thrust forward suddenly, and with a lunge drew forth, exploding out of the waters. And then he stood upright. And nude, perfect, terrifying, he walked upon the aquamarine waves.

  Treading water, they watched in shocked silence, saw the soles of his feet skim along the mirror surface, as he moved away from them, leaving footprints of brilliant pale foam.

  “Wait, Koerdis!” cried Elasirr, angry, his voice resounding with despair. “You have not answered us! You are the second to last! You of all I had hoped will give us the truth, you who are the lord of Truth!”

  And the receding blue figure paused for an instant, and Koerdis turned his face to watch them, for one last time.

  Truth is once again before you . . . sounded his voice from afar, like an ocean swell. The sky, the waters, they shine it forth. What is the source of light? Recognize it as a paradox!

  And once again, he turned his intensity away from them, and continued walking. And in his wake, they thought the waters sang, rippled, and whispered. And it resounded, like the light upon the sky and waves—Rainbow is a paradox.

  And sudden
ly then, the ocean rose on all sides, and they felt its funneling force, and they were being pulled within.

  The waters closed over their heads, and the last they remembered, gasping for desperate air, was blue silence, as they jumped. . . .

  Into violet.

  They stood within a bower of a garden of sweet flowering shrubs, abounding with amethyst blossoms of a million petals, with delicate fern of the palest fine lavender, with heliotrope roses and swirling hyacinth.

  From above shone a full otherworldly moon.

  In the center, upon a bed of tiny purple bell-flowers, sat a woman, with tresses long and ripping like a running stream.

  Her form was gentle glowing fire. And her hair sang.

  At Ranhé’s side, Elasand gasped suddenly, and moved forward, and then fell on his knees before the one who was indeed Laelith, the gentle lady of the Way Things Are.

  With a strange painful tug upon her innards, Ranhé watched her Lord Vaeste fall before the violet one, watched his face transform, his cool beauty melt into absolute rapture as he gazed upon her, the Tilirreh of Love. And she did not see how, at the same time as she watched the radiant face of Elasand, another was watching her own face, her own expression.

  Elasirr looked upon the moment of pain that was visible upon the face of Ranhé. And his own face was transformed. Indeed, all of their faces were now filled with it, with acuteness of naked emotion, with nothing now to hide it, no worldly reserve, no pride, no concern. All were bathed in the equating smoothness of the lavender glow.

  “My lady,” whispered Elasand Vaeste, kneeling before the incarnation of his dream. “My lady.” And he could say nothing else, only stared, never taking his eyes away from the sight of her.

  And then, the violet one smiled. With that smile, the light in the garden intensified, and the blossoms turned their heads, opening further, while buds broke open into new flowers.

  The air, like a perfect lilac dawn, was clamoring with the sound of a running stream, a great river, and from afar, a light tinkle of bells. Those bells, realized Ranhé, were but lilies-of-the-valley, their tiny heads moving in time to the gossamer wind.

  You are with me, all of you, at last, sounded the intimate voice of the goddess. And this is where it all begins and ends. For, Koerdis is just behind me, and ahead, Werail. And so, what have you learned?

  Elasirr, his eyes open wide, an odd smirk taking hold of his lips, pronounced loudly and mockingly, “I don’t know about my brother here—who even now is enraptured and wallows mindlessly at your feet, O Tilirreh—but I have learned only that the mystery of the Rainbow lies within a paradox. Am I right?”

  But Laelith looked directly into Elasirr’s eyes, and suddenly the mocking smile faded from his face. In its place, Ranhé saw, was only raw pain. And something else, something that resonated within her own being, and which she recognized with the bitter ease of long familiarity.

  Self-hatred.

  He hated himself, this man with the sun-hair, with the proud angry eyes, and his charming killing smile, the man who wore so many masks—that of the Guildmaster of the Light Guild, and the master assassin, lord of Bilhaar, that of one who had the power and the responsibility for the City of Dreams, Tronaelend-Lis, the City that had now been thrust into Twilight.

  And this man, Elasirr, bastard son of Vaeste, stood revealed in his personal entirety, before the one who was violet.

  Ranhé found that suddenly she could not bear the sight of his face, could not bear the agony etched in its lines.

  Her own inner past paled in comparison. She remembered again, mercurial glimpses of her mother, her father, her child self. She remembered the daily hollow cold that grew and settled within her with the years, the alienation. But in the face of this man, Elasirr, she saw a naked wound. Even now it bled, and there was nothing to alleviate it, in the soft merciless lavender glow.

  He was the assassin, and he was the lifegiver, she knew at last. He took away, and he created. And now he was all alone, before the one who revealed the way things are.

  “Laelith!” exclaimed Ranhé, with sudden inexplicable agitation. “Stop! He cannot bear it, he cannot look within your eyes anymore. Leave him be!”

  And then, the eyes of the lady were at last upon her, and she felt, with a moment of piercing, her own heart break.

  “Laelith . . .” she whispered then, “Please, pity them both. Pity him who loves you. And him who hates himself. I ask nothing for myself, because there’s nothing for me here. I know that very well, lady, I bear no illusions, not even in your beautiful perfect intimate garden.”

  No illusions, my poor child? Not even one? whispered the warm voice. Not even your secret dream of fulfillment? For yes, I know it, I know it all. All that is within you is also within me.

  “Not even that one,” replied Ranhé sadly. “Illusions create hope. And it is hope that hurts so much.”

  And yet you must have hope, or you may not exist. Even now, all of you are here in supplication on behalf of your outer lives, your City, your responsibilities. And yet the one supplication that I truly hear from each one of you, is the personal supplication on behalf of oneself.

  “It is true,” said Elasand suddenly, the one who had been silent all along. “True, O lady, that I selfishly stand before you, and all I can think of is yourself and myself—not my City, not my fellow men. I love you, Laelith! And without you, I can go on no longer.”

  And with those words, he hung his head, kneeling in a bower of soft lilac grass. In back of him stood the man with the sun-hair, his eyes also averted, looking neither right nor left, but straight ahead, somewhere upon the moonlit violet sky. And on the other side stood Ranhé, simple, quiet, resigned.

  The woman with the glowing tresses got up slowly from her soft place in the grass. She rose, taller than any of them, dressed in a sheer gossamer gown that trailed to the floor, and ended in nothing, in vaporous night.

  Her face was peace. Her eyes, more remote than any of the other Tilirr, windows upon an elsewhere.

  She neared Elasand, still kneeling before her. And she reached out her pale hand and placed it upon his raven head.

  He started at her touch, and a visible tremor came to run through his whole body. He threw his head back, looking up at her with mad joy.

  And Laelith bent forward then, her glowing hair falling about them like a curtain, obscuring them into intimacy, and she took his face between her two palms, and then brought her lips down upon his upturned own.

  She kissed him, and in that instant he died. He sank away, blanked out into the oblivion of impossibility—for, such is the price of fulfillment.

  And when the next instant he came to life again, she was already remote, having stepped away from him, and stood now before his half-brother.

  Come, said the goddess to Elasirr, looking impossibly into his eyes. Let me kiss you and heal you also.

  But he watched her with proud tragic eyes, and he said, “No! Do not come near me, O Tilirreh! I want nothing of you.”

  But Laelith smiled. And she drew forth her hand, placing it upon his forehead.

  At her touch, Elasirr felt warm lightning fill him and pierce him. He closed his eyes involuntarily, his lips parting, a breath expelled from within.

  And then, the lips of the violet one were upon his own, and he too knew the instant of oblivion, and with it joy and peace.

  But only for a moment.

  For, Laelith stood before Ranhé now. Only, before she could do anything, Ranhé suddenly reached out with her own hands, and she took the right hand of the goddess. And then, feeling it burn within her two own, she brought it up to her lips. And she kissed the hand of Laelith.

  “Thank you, O lady,” she whispered, “for touching them both with your love!”

  And when she looked up again, she saw that the eyes of Laelith cried. Tears like drops of dew came down the pale smooth cheeks.

  Thank you, poor child, said the voice of her who was love incarnate. It is you who I will tell t
he last thing, the last truth.

  Within Rainbow lies a paradox of the future, the present, and the past.

  Let this knowledge serve you, when it comes time for the final battle. For it, the struggle, will be one both outside and within yourself. Go now, with my blessings. And may you be some day fulfilled!

  And in that instant, the figure of Laelith blazed into an impossible light, and it seemed that the moon came hurtling down from the sky upon the garden of violet.

  The world convulsed around them, while light sang a fierce wind song, and they began to recede, recede, and then they jumped. . . .

  Ranhé opened her eyes with a shuddering breath, finding herself standing within the Circle. Around them danced violet light, like within the heart of a waterfall. It danced, and then receded, gently, fading. And then, they remained in the monochrome hueless gray dusk of the chamber.

  The Circle broke. With it, some of the Masters staggered, having lost an inordinate amount of energy.

  The Guildmaster stepped once more to the center, his face drained, and hollows beneath his eyes.

  They all looked upon him. And what they saw was not hope, but rather, a madness.

  “We have seen the Tilirr,” spoke Elasirr loudly, brashly. “And they have answered our prayers. Thus, with the new knowledge given us, we attack now.”

  He paused, looking at them all, and his gaze, though tired, was strong and ageless. “Now, go!” he concluded. “Go and rest and regather your strength. We will need all of it in the fight.”

  At his words, the Masters began to leave the room. On the other side of the chamber, Lord Vaeste, motionless, sunken in apathy, leaned against the wall. When nearly everyone had gone, he straightened, and neared Elasirr, saying, “Why did you lie to them, Elas? Why did you tell them we have a secret knowledge of something from the Tilirr, when in truth we have nothing, and there is no hope?”

  “Because,” replied Elasirr in a whisper, regarding him closely, “I had to tell them something. To give them strength for the struggle ahead.”